Starbucks vs Global Anti-Imperialism: Unraveling the Impact of the Boycott

Okay. Let's talk about Starbucks again. And then more broadly about the the global anti imperialist movement that is developing as a result or as a response to the Zionist genocide in Gaza. The worldwide boycott of Starbucks is causing severe damage to that company. It's really rather breathtaking.

I think their stocks are at the lowest point that they've ever been. Starbucks has lost, as a company, almost 10% of its total value as their share prices have absolutely plummeted over the last several weeks. It's an unprecedented drop. Sales have dropped, drastically. Several outlets have been closed or their hours have been decreased.

Staff are being moved from one location to another to try to accommodate for the lack of business. They're seeing their working hours cut. Some have gone from full time to part time and so on and so on. It has been a relentless campaign globally against Starbucks. You know, in Malaysia, Malaysians are imposing essentially a blockade of Starbucks even tighter than the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Stores are empty. Supplies in those stores are not being restocked because there's no point. The company that owns the franchise in Malaysia is suffering in its share price now and in its reputation among traders. The advice being given out now is that they that that anyone who owns shares in that company should sell them. It won't be long before this comes to a head And the franchise, the Starbucks franchise in Malaysia is either gonna have to shut down or it's gonna have to be rebranded as an independent franchise, is probably what they should do.

You know, we are already two months in to this conflict, but customer commitment to boycott is not waning. It's only getting stronger. Now for a country like Malaysia, the owners of Starbucks have to understand, and this is this goes for many western companies, they have to understand that, Malaysia has never been without a lack of good alternatives. Starbucks was never filling a gap in the market. But there was some sense among the the customers of Starbucks that there was some kind of privilege or prestige about going to Starbucks, precisely because it is overpriced, because it is western, and because it has a kind of a a place, a special place in popular western culture.

So people would go to Starbucks because going to Starbucks, they believed, said something or conveyed something about themselves and their their status, their sophistication, and about their class, and about their level of privilege. But nobody went to Starbucks, because there was nowhere else to go. They went there for other reasons. They went there because, because of how it made them feel about themselves and about how they thought they would be perceived by others because of the fact that they could afford to go to Starbucks. Well, you can see where this is going.

Now if you go to Starbucks, you can't reap those kinds of, intangible benefits anymore. You can't feel prestigious if you go to Starbucks. You can't feel special. You won't be perceived positively. You will be perceived negatively if you go to Starbucks.

So Starbucks has no conventional business methods to solve this problem now. They're not gonna be able to save themselves by offering discounts. They're not gonna be able to save themselves by coming up with some new fancy drinks or desserts. Nobody cares. Better drinks, you know, cheaper prices and better desserts are available everywhere.

They're available all over the place in Malaysia. And, by going elsewhere, people can now actually feel better about themselves and achieve those same intangible results by going elsewhere. They can be better perceived by others if they go elsewhere. So whatever edge Starbucks used to have in the market, it's been lost completely, and it's unsalvageable. The boycott has created the sense in the public to prefer buying local.

It has created its own trend now in the market. Starbucks intransigence and their stubbornness to not take a positive stance on the Palestinian issue is not only killing their company, but in fact, is killing Western companies' viability altogether in the global South. Because look, a boycott changes people's consumer habits. It changes their buying behavior. It changes their attitude as consumers and their preferences, and that changes the whole market.

Being anti Palestinian, being pro colonialism, insisting on not being responsive to public opinion in this case is not only hurting Starbucks, but it is in fact transforming the whole mentality of the populations around the world into a mentality of rejection of western companies in general and a preference, for local businesses in general. They are inadvertently against their will promoting economic decoupling from the West. Now there's a reason for this. There's a reason why they're doing this. There's a deeper reason why they're doing this even though it's against their interest.

And it isn't because Starbucks or other companies are just so devoted to Zionism. No. As I've said before many times, businesses are not ideological. That has nothing to do with it. But what they cannot abide, what they cannot tolerate is accountability.

What they cannot allow to happen is for the public to successfully demand that they become responsive, and they cannot allow themselves, to be seen as, to be recognized as, and to be acknowledged as political actors in the society and in the world. They know that if they acknowledge that they are in fact political actors and they accept to be acknowledged as political actors, that that's gonna change all the rules, And that's the last thing that they want. You see, when a company like Starbucks, or any company for that matter, whoever it might be, when they try to portray themselves as apolitical, when they say that they don't wanna take a political stance on this or that, it is dishonest because they are political. Every major corporation in the world, a multinational corporation, is a political actor. It's not that they don't wanna be political, it's that they don't want to be responsive.

They don't want their political power, in the society to be held accountable. They wanna be able to use their power exclusively, for the benefit of their shareholders. That's what they've always done. You know, and they thought that by inventing the concept of corporate social responsibility, they thought that they could evade accountability. That's what that was all about.

They thought that they could dictate to us, define for us what social responsibility should mean. They thought that they could just self identify as responsible according to their own terms and conditions, according to their own definitions, and then tell us how good they are, and we would just be docile enough to accept it. You know, the whole concept of social corporate responsibility was created precisely, to keep the public out of the equation, to keep them to keep the public, out of defining what it's supposed to mean. It's a deflection of accountability. It's a deflection of responsiveness.

They want to, determine the parameters of discussion specifically to keep the public out and to keep out any, recognition that corporations are political actors. Because look, Starbucks anti Palestinian stance is not their only political position. They are, like western multinationals in general, purely imperialistic and colonial in nature practice and in impact. Starbucks is anti local business, anti local cafe, anti local restaurant, anti local entrepreneur. They are anti domestic economic growth.

They are anti, domestic competition. They saturate every market that they go to, every market that they enter. They have a quota, of something like 20 new outlets per year that must be opened. It's a cancerous mentality of endless spreading, endless growth, endless saturation, endless devouring of opportunities for domestic entrepreneurs. I mean, many small independent cafes, small independent bakeries, and independent restaurants had to close down because they couldn't compete with Starbucks?

Not only in Malaysia, not only in the region, not only in the global South, but even in the West. They are anti any approach to the economy that does not favor monopolization, that does not favor major massive corporations. That's a very political impact. That has a political impact and a social impact. Not to mention, as I've said before, corporations wield significant literal political power.

They wield power over legislative policy through, lobbying and through political contributions. And they only ever use that power for their own self interest, for the interest of their shareholders. And they don't want to ever concede, or compromise or bend on that. They wanna be able to use that power selfishly. And if they ever succumb, to public pressure on any issue that matters to the population, to their customers, particularly if it is an issue, that, has more to do with, you know, broader society, broader social issues, global issues than it has to do with, for example, their supply chain or their internal operations.

Well, then they're afraid, and rightly so, that if they ever do that, then they will lose ability to use their power exclusively for their own interests. But you see, this is the failed western model of doing business, and the global South and the pivot to the global South is potentially changing that model and changing it permanently. The response to the, genocide in Gaza is an impetus for that change. And they are resisting it, obviously, tooth and nail. But this is something that, this is the kind of change that they'll fight to the death, anyone's death, so that they can hold on to their unaccountable power.

But the more they fight it, the more they're losing. The more they try to hold on to it, the more, they lose their grip on power because the power is and always has been with the people, with the consumers, with the population, with the public. And this is especially true, in the global South because we have our own companies, we have our own businesses, we have our own shops, we have our own products, we have our own brands. And the more, western companies expose themselves as imperialistic colonizer institutions, the more they lose even the, psychological and emotional appeal that those companies and those brands had for customers who used to buy them for reasons of perceived privilege and peer approval. Now even that is being lost because most of these companies, truth be told, most of these companies have become overly dependent on marketing and on branding for their appeal in order to be attractive to customers.

And they're less dependent on the actual quality or the market competitiveness of their products. They rely on brand recognition. And so therefore, on the intangible personal reasons that people might buy their products or go to their shops or frequent their companies. It it it appeals to a person's sense of identity and the appearance of importance or success that is related to being a customer of this or that company. Well, again, these reasons are evaporating by the hour.

You're not seen as cool now if you wear western brands or you shop at western stores or you drink at Starbucks. You're not seen as cool anymore. You're seen as a collaborator. Your status in the society is negatively impacted if you are a customer of western companies. It's quickly reaching the Rubicon for these companies to where it won't even matter now if these companies do come out with a positive stance on the Palestinian issue.

It'll be too late. It'll be too little too late because the whole ethos of western corporations will already have been identified as imperialistic and as colonialistic. And the global South domestic economies will be turning to each other and to themselves, and they'll disengage from you altogether. They'll disengage from the West, and the rules, of the global economy will in fact change, and the rules of doing business will in fact change and change permanently.